Top 5 Meryl Streep Scenes | #1063

16:03Adam Kempenaar:She's always able to play so many notes at once. And you do get that in that scene from the post. I hadn't thought, Josh, about trying to cover decades. And sometimes we both do that. When we look at these lists, we say, okay, if we're looking at a career, it might make sense to, or especially if we're trying to decide between two scenes, maybe, or three scenes, maybe we'll pick the one that helps us round out a decade or a few decades and gives us an expanse of a career. I didn't do that at all, but I'm glad as I look at my list now, I too have the 70s. I've got the 80s. I've got the 90s and I've got the 2000s.

16:41Adam Kempenaar:I don't have the 20s, right? But I, yeah, I have the 2000s. So I've got, I've got all of those decades covered here and I'm going to start with a movie from 1990 and I'm calling this scene adoring mommy slash I'm still here. This is from postcards from the edge, which this was some homework that I had to do. And it paid off. And I want to go back to something you said at the top of this segment, setting it up. And I do agree, ultimately, with what Sam wrote, where when you look especially at all of these Oscar nominations, 23, I think, is the total, right? 23 Oscar nominations, Josh. Four for supporting actress, 17 for best actress.

17:27Adam Kempenaar:And I think highly of some of these movies. I think very highly of my top four on this list. And I think Postcards from the Edge is pretty good. I definitely think it's worth seeing. So I just want to state, I think the top four on my list are very good movies. But when you look at these 23, I can take or leave a lot of these. And The Post is one of those two, actually, from Spielberg. The only one that I would consider potentially a masterpiece is The Deer Hunter. And that's what we're talking about. Movies that you might see on a top 100 of all time. Streep somehow doesn't have a lot of those, even though she gives these amazing performances in all of these movies, right?

18:07Adam Kempenaar:So I did want to express that, that I am a fan of these movies on my list. And I am a fan of Postcards from the Edge, which was homework I not only had to do for Streep, but homework I long wanted to knock out for Mike Nichols as well. Screenplay by Carrie Fisher. It's based on her 1987 semi-autobiographical novel. If you know that, if you just know that Carrie Fisher wrote it, you can see where it intersects with her life all over it. It earned Meryl Streep one of those Best Actress nominations. And Shirley MacLaine plays the mom character, her mom that is Carrie Fisher's mom. She's playing Debbie Reynolds.

18:52Adam Kempenaar:There is a pivotal scene, Josh, later in this movie that I also consider for this list. It would have been the other scene from this movie I'd go with. It's an honorable mention that explains the dynamic that's at play in the scene I'm choosing for number five, where they finally have the true emotional heart to heart, really spill it conversation that mother and daughter should have. and daughter, Suzanne, the character Street Plays, says to her mother, because the mom's always saying, you really shouldn't be an actress. You should be a singer. You're such a lovely singer. I love it when you sing.

19:33Adam Kempenaar:Suzanne says, you don't want me to be a singer. You're the singer. You're the performer. I can't possibly compete with you. What if somebody won? You want me to do well, just not better than you. In my pick, Suzanne has just gotten out of rehab after almost dying from an overdose. She's worked her first day on a movie, a crappy movie, and she's exhausted. And what does mom do? Throw a party for her. Or is it a party for her? A party for mom? And inevitably, she encourages, or maybe the word is forces her daughter, to sing. and after enough cajoling she she gets up there and you can tell that the way street plays her she's never totally comfortable in her skin mom is is even pulling some strings and choreographing from the back of the room and despite all that street being street the suzanne character sings gorgeously you know though what's going to happen next they're going everybody in the room is going ask Doris mom to sing and she'll reluctantly at first she'll reluctantly but then she'll give in and agree and and of course she's gonna kill because even then before you've heard that conversation later you know that mom is is not going to let her daughter beat her she is going to make sure that everyone in the room remembers that she's the star she's the true star and like the song says that she is, in fact, still here.

21:10Adam Kempenaar:And if you watch this scene, Josh, you might think, well, wait, is this your top five Shirley MacLaine scenes? Because this is Shirley MacLaine. Almost this entire scene is Shirley MacLaine. It's three minutes and 15 seconds, and Street might get less than 30 seconds of screen time. But the point is what, why it stood out to me so much is because of what Streep does with the screen time. And I won't try to break down every moment on screen here, but just Streep non-verbally. The first time we see her is mom is singing. And it's a head nod, a little head nod and a smile that suggests both, okay, here we go again, but also, oh boy, here we go.

21:59Adam Kempenaar:She's going to do it. Mom's going to do what mom does. And she's eager about it. And then you get the little head shake and a laugh and an eye roll, but again, a nod of approval and a smile. She largely loathes her mother. And yet she is watching so admiringly. And after a few shots where you recognize that Suzanne's part of the audience and she's enjoying the performance for once she's not just stuck in her myopic world. And her mom is being her mom. She sticks the emotional dagger. She sings at one point, I got through all of last year. And when she says that line for emphasis, she steps down to touch her daughter's face.

22:40Adam Kempenaar:So Suzanne has to process that her mother's disappointed in her because she's the reason that she had to get through all of last year. But her mother's also kind of caressing her and saying, It's okay. We got through it. Everything's fine. Those layers again. And then the raucous, raunchy finale that leaves Suzanne. Streep is literally bouncing up and down in her seat, clapping and yelling yay in the front row for her mother. And I was marveling, Josh, watching this at how the scene demonstrates the complexity of this relationship and not how much approval daughter still needs from mother as a grown woman, but how much approval daughter is still compelled to give her mother.

23:28Adam Kempenaar:You can see in Streep's face what the five-year-old and 10-year-old version of her would have looked like watching Doris rehearse at home, watching her perform from the side of the stage, maybe at a live performance. And no matter how much angst has passed between them no matter how many tough times they've had to get through together she just like that watching her mom perform can be transported back to that little adoring girl that's what Streep gives us all just physically I've run the gamut a to z three cheers and damn

24:18Adam Kempenaar:I knew the moment I watched it. I said, I can't believe, I can't believe what Streep is conveying all here with just that 30 seconds of runtime. Josh taking a cue from our friends at The Next Picture Show. The movie I see playing at Regal Cinemas right now that I'm most eager to check out. a movie that's getting a ton of acclaim over Rotten Tomatoes from other critics is The Sheep Detectives. And the movie that they're pairing it with is Babe Pig in the City, a beloved film by every critic I know and cinephiles alike. The Sheep Detectives is a film that you can check out now at Regal and you might be able to see for free.

25:00Adam Kempenaar:I said I was only going to mention one movie, but Josh, you know what else Regal is doing? Top Gun at 40 for one week only next week. for one week only. I mean, at 40. At 40. Hearing that just aged me, Adam. Aged me. Tell me about it. What are you doing? I could still remember sitting in the theater watching that movie twice. And Top Gun Maverick for one week only. Both of them. We talked about maybe giving Top Gun a Top Gun at 40 review. Maybe we should do that instead of the Tree of Life? Okay, we'll have that production meeting another time. You can see all of those at Regal Cinemas now, and you might just be able to see them for free with Regal Unlimited, the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits.

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26:23Josh Larsen:Postcards sounds so great. It pains me to confess this one is still a blind spot. And, and let me, let me just be clear. I did so much homework for this list. You did. I think I watched like six films because I had a lot of ground to cover and I probably should have prioritized that because it actually sounds right up my alley. The nonverbal stuff you talk about, Adam, that's definitely going to come up the way she incorporates that into her performances in a pick later of mine. All right. At number four, one thing I did want to make sure that I had on this list, especially after watching a few more things, was to not to her considerable musical talent.

27:01Josh Larsen:Maybe that's obvious for people who've seen everything she's done because she's done a lot of musically inflected performances. And I wanted to recognize that with one of my picks. Could have gone with, here's a bit of homework I did, the opening song and dance number in Death Becomes Her. It's this extensive Broadway musical routine that she's at the center of. Obviously could have gone with Mamma Mia, could have gone with Into the Woods. She's prodigious in all of those as a musical theater talent. but I'm going to pick a scene from a movie as we're talking about movies themselves that I actually like better than each of those.

27:34Josh Larsen:This is one that made my top 10 list. I think the post might have too. So yeah, to your point, these are movies that I do really like as well. I'm going to go with to showcase Streep's musical talent, a Prairie Home Companion. This is Robert Altman's 2006 adaptation of the long running Garrison Keillor public radio variety show. If you've never heard of this variety show, all I can tell you is it was a staple on the radio in my house growing up. My parents love this. I think they even had cassette tapes that they brought in the car for road trips of past broadcasts of Prairie Home Companion. So I knew this material well.

28:15Josh Larsen:And in the movie version, Streep plays one of the Johnson girls. Lily Tomlin is her sister. So they're one of the performers. basic conceit of this is that the Prairie Home Companion regulars, they have come together to put on one more live show before it's likely to be yanked from the air. So from that show, my pick is the Johnson Girls performance of My Minnesota Home. All the world, it is a world of rivers flowing to the sea. Streep belts it out here. I mean, Tomlin is incredible too. They're just incredible. The music talent is what I want to highlight, but I really like in this scene too, Streep gets a chance to introduce this song.

29:02Josh Larsen:And her character talks about how she and her sister Tomlin, when they were young, they were inspired to sing in order to lift the spirits of their overworked mom and how when they were singing, they'd elicit a smile from her as wide as the Mississippi. She'd be down on the kitchen floor scrubbing on her knees. But if you stood in the doorway, you sang a song that she liked, why she would just look up and smile, worn out as she was. It was a smile as wide as a Mississippi. Down at the mouth. Now, if you're thinking, I don't remember this movie at all, It kind of came and went, especially in the Altman filmography.

29:46Josh Larsen:Well, here's some more reason to catch up with it. I'm going to fill you in on the rest of the cast here. You've got Kevin Kline reuniting in a way with Streep, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Tommy Lee Jones, Maya Rudolph, Virginia Madsen. I mean, this whole thing is just a delight. So it's worth catching up with if you need to become an Altman completist, a Streep completist. but my pick is that's my Minnesota home from a Prairie home companion.

30:12Adam Kempenaar:I'm sorry if I missed this. Was this homework or did you see it and review it at the time?

30:16Josh Larsen:No, no. It made my top 10 list that year. Yeah.

30:19Adam Kempenaar:Okay. Absolutely loved it. Reviewed here on the show, I think by myself and Sam and liked by both of us when we saw this and I, I have to admit, despite being an Iowa boy through and through never once. And I still haven't ever listened to Garrison Keillor. my introduction to Garrison Keillor was watching the movie. I think it was for a lot of people actually.

30:41Josh Larsen:Yeah. And I,

30:42Adam Kempenaar:and of course I thought it was a pure delight, especially with all of those talents. And I'm pretty sure that was when I discovered, because I hadn't seen yet a movie like postcards from the edge or some of these other street films. I'm pretty sure that's when I discovered, Oh, Meryl Streep can do anything. Yeah. Right. Was seeing her on stage belting out these tunes with that incredible voice. And what a perfect transition from my last pick, right? Mother and daughter. Isn't that Lindsay Lohan's character? Yeah. Her daughter. Lindsay Lohan plays her daughter. It's true. Watch it. Tense relationship watching from the wings.

31:17Adam Kempenaar:Just like I was envisioning. And they're musical rivals.

31:20Josh Larsen:Musical rivals. You know, postcards involved. Exactly. Sure.

31:23Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Okay. Let's go to my number four. And we're going to jump ahead to the 2000s with the Charlie Kaufman film. adaptation. And the scene is the one on YouTube. It's called dial tone scene. And that's appropriate. I think I don't know what else you would call the dial tone scene, or maybe you call it Susan Orlean gets higher than a kite. Susan Orlean gets stoned out of her mind because it it's so fun to watch the journey that susan orlean the character susan orlean goes on in this scene she's in a motel room she's been sent a package from chris cooper's character john laroche i want to just take a very quick digression josh if you'll indulge me this is all about meryl streep but i meant to say this very quickly during our top five robert duvall scenes because I was talking about Lonesome Dove.

32:26Adam Kempenaar:And I didn't realize when I started watching Lonesome Dove that Chris Cooper was in Lonesome Dove and has a supporting role in that. Lonesome Dove, he had been in Matewan in 1987. He's kind of the lead in John Sayles' Matewan, but otherwise had just done a couple TV things, hadn't really had a breakout, a relative breakout for Chris Cooper. Lonesome Dove is the thing that really put him on the map as an actor. And of course, it's hard to say how I would have responded to him having never seen him in 1989 when I know now that I love Chris Cooper as an actor and I know that he's incredibly talented and has been successful.

33:06Adam Kempenaar:but I'm telling you watching him on screen and trying to watch it through the eyes of someone seeing him fresh in 1989 it's all there on screen he he jumps off the screen in a way that a lot of those other supporting characters in the in the show simply do not he he is that good and he was that good way back in 89 he's that good in this film as as LaRoche of course And what a pair these two really are. What a couple they are. So this is more nonverbal acting, at least at first, from Meryl Streep, where she's in this motel room. And I just love the way it opens, Josh. Honestly, just watching Streep as Susan contemplating taking this mind-altering drug that originates from the ghost orchid.

33:54Adam Kempenaar:the way she just by sitting there conveys orleans pensiveness how you you get the sense that she is completely unmoored like she's untethered from her reality the the everyday reality of this new yorker or you know high profile magazine writer and the the upper class world that she is used to. And she's actually thinking about something like snorting this and, and going down that rabbit hole. You get that you fully get that just by looking at the way she's sitting. It's in her eyes, but it's also in her posture, the way she's hunched over just a little bit, the way she has her hands in her lap.

34:39Adam Kempenaar:And this is a street performance too. I wonder, as we look at our list, how many characters we can say this about, because she's known for this, obviously, right? This is one of those characters that is kind of Meryl Streep just being Meryl Streep, just being a quote unquote normal person. There's no accessories to go into character mode with. There's no costume, really. There's no voice or accent work at play. There's no real mannerisms. She's not playing a real character. Now she is. She's playing Susan Orlean, but But neither Susan Orlean is neither recognizable to us as viewers, nor is Streep trying to imitate Susan Orlean for real.

35:20Adam Kempenaar:This is just a very raw and bracingly real Meryl Streep. And watching her start then to feel the effects of the drug while brushing her teeth and then humming along with the dial tone and smiling. you you fully sense from her that this is just this warming sensation that that must be just going slowly through her entire body and and then the next shot is she's back on the bed and she's just staring off stoned like she may never return to reality but then that phone rings josh and it's laroche who brings her back to reality and we get another susan orlean we get this playful, giggly, silly Susan Orlean.

36:11Josh Larsen:John! Johnny. Hey, John. Yeah.

36:24Josh Larsen:Very happy now.

36:27Adam Kempenaar:And we talked about with The Devil Wears Prada, too, about discovery and the way Streep is able to convey these moments of discovery for these characters. And I'll use your word to precision. There's always this sense. You cannot separate with Streep craft, the technical precision and the craft that she brings, but that's never at the expense of the pure visceral nature of whatever the character is going through. Just the pure, the pureness of the emotion or the the psychology of the character in that moment. And so you have something really that's so abstract, but then you have this, this, this precision of the craft with it.

37:12Adam Kempenaar:I think that's the magic of, of Meryl Streep. And the discovery here is her face when she gets LaRoche and her in perfect harmony with the hum. And she says, we got it. And, and she is, she is expressing Meryl Streep as, as Susan Orlean is expressing there and experiencing very subtly, but you see it and feel it. This, this sensation of just pure bliss. And that's the discovery that she's, that she's conveying with that character is just this, this idea of pure bliss that as, as a viewer, you're watching thinking, I hope I can feel like that one time in my life, whatever that character is feeling.

37:54You know,

37:55Josh Larsen:I have a pick coming up here where I propose it's her loosest performance, But maybe this you're describing this particular moment in this scene as her loosest moment of all.

38:05Adam Kempenaar:I think it might be. Let's take a moment, Josh, to thank some of our film spotting family members for all the amazing support they give the show. And we like to highlight them and give a little background on who they are and who they are as cinephiles.

38:22Josh Larsen:Indeed, we do. So thank you very much, family members, Matt and Skokie, and Family Plus members, Seth Holloway in Charlotte, North Carolina. They did fill out the film spotting family intake form. It's optional. Don't be scared away because of that. It sounds so cold and sterile. I know. Intake. We got to change that. But these two did take the time to do it, and they gave us these thoughtful responses. Here's Matt. Way back in probably 2011, while working long hours retouching photos in the Chicago suburbs, I googled movie podcasts, found your show, and it helped rekindle my love of cinema. I was pretty immediately hooked and began listening to a lot of the back catalog.

39:02Josh Larsen:I still love the show today. One random episode I remember was Maddie talking about the Azazel Jacobs movie, Terry. Do I have that name right? I have not seen Terry. Azazel or yeah. Azazel, okay. We'll go with it. It may have been on that recommendation that I went and caught the film at the Landmark Cinema in Lakeview. Took me 13 years of listening to the show and being a Chicago, now Chicagoland resident, but I finally made it to my first live event with a Film Spotting Fest screening of Before Sunrise at the Music Box. Thank you for coming out.

39:34Adam Kempenaar:How about that? You know what? I want to say I almost certainly saw Terry for review on Film Spotting at the Landmark Cinema in Lakeview. Had to be. Seth says this.

40:14Josh Larsen:That may have helped, but yeah, in depth, I think, what did we go? Almost 45 minutes on the Devil Wears Prada too. So in depth is, it's what you're going to get here, Seth. For better or worse. Glad that you appreciate it. All right. Matt had a great answer to our prompt about a favorite show segment. Your recent conversation about the archers helped spur a mini archers marathon. My wife and I have undertaken across recent months. We watched the red shoes, a matter of life and death and black narcissus, all courtesy of the Skokie Public Library, which is an amazing resource for movie rentals in addition to books.

40:49Josh Larsen:Seriously, their collection is huge and diverse. I believe it, Matt. We always love the shout out and support for our public libraries. We want to thank Matt and Seth for being family members. Now, if you'd like to follow both of them on Letterboxd, Matt is Matthew Joel. Seth is at Indistinct Chat. In addition to keeping us doing what we're doing, membership comes with perks. You can listen early and ad-free. You'll also get Sam's weekly newsletter and exclusive opportunities like the FilmSpotting Family Discord. Of course, we also do put out monthly bonus shows exclusively for family members.

41:27Josh Larsen:We just recently, for April's show, didn't ask us anything episode.

41:31Adam Kempenaar:We did, and we are about to record as we have now turned the calendar page over into May. We're about to record in a few days as we're taping this, our May bonus, which is our draft with our film spotting madness winner, who is not Samuel Maxton, but actually Samuel Thompson. And Samuel Thompson has given us a few topics. We settled on a draft of the new Hollywood. So new Hollywood, think about Mark Harris and Pictures at a Revolution. Think about Peter Biskin's book, Easy Riders and Raging Bulls, though we're not going to go quite as far as at least Peter Biskin's book goes. We have very intentionally tried to keep this to an era that for us truly feels like the, at least the first phase of the new Hollywood.

42:24Adam Kempenaar:So August 67, the release of Bonnie and Clyde up to, but not including June of 1975, June 20th, I believe up to June 20th and the release of Jaws because Jaws is then that turning point where even though there are films after that certainly qualify as quote unquote new Hollywood. And you can even argue that Spielberg and Jaws fits into that. That's fine. We can have that conversation another time. Nevertheless, the blockbuster with Jaws sort of resets everything in Hollywood. So that's our cutoff point. the less titles to choose from, the more fighting over the draft. That's right. It should be fun.

43:03Adam Kempenaar:You have that to look forward to in your Film Spotting family feed in a few weeks. Here in May, I don't remember the exact date we have pegged, but yes, a couple of weeks for as little as$5 a month. And that's discounted. If you pay annually, you get those bonus shows. You get some of the other benefits that Josh mentioned, and you get to support this show, Film Spotting family. dot com is where you can learn more. You can also rate or review us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Josh, let's get into that top five, the meat of our Meryl Streep top five with our top three. And I would love to hear what your number three is.

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47:14Josh Larsen:And I have this gap. This goes to why I had to do so much homework too, Adam, is that growing up in the 1980s, in a house, we did watch the Oscars almost every year. So I mostly knew of Meryl Streep for all those nominations and wins she racked up in that decade because it was entirely in movies I was too young to see. Didn't have HBO. Couldn't help me out there. So yeah, she was just this legend out of my reach. I mean, let's look at the stats here. Seven nominations in the 1980s and two wins. You have to literally, when you go on IMDb to her Oscars page, you have to like click to expand the section to see everything.

47:56Josh Larsen:So incredible run. I was on the outside looking in. So probably the first time I gave thoughtful consideration to one of her performances was with 1995's The Bridges of Madison County. This was Clint Eastwood's adaptation of the hugely successful Robert James Waller novel. It traces a four-day affair between a National Geographic photographer on assignment, played by Eastwood, and an unsatisfied Iowa housewife and mother, played by Streep. it's a rare middle-aged romance. Hollywood didn't make much of then, and I don't know if they do at all. Now it's also fatalistically sad, given just the pre-doomed nature of this relationship.

48:41Josh Larsen:When I wrote that review, I described it as a love noir in which the heroes are conflicted and no one wins in the end. I was very high on both Streep and the film itself back in 1995, I have not seen it since. So I was heartened when it got a lot of support, came up a number of times when I did ask about favorite Streep scenes on my Larson on Film Facebook page. In fact, a few people mentioned what is going to be my pick, the silent goodbye glances exchanged by Streep's Francesca and Eastwood's Robert near the end of the film. So we have completely nonverbal acting going on here. Basically, it starts with Francesca and her husband pulling up to this row of stores to pick up groceries and supplies.

49:26Josh Larsen:She returns first, sits in the truck to wait for him. And then she notices it's been raining this whole time looking out through her windshield. She notices Robert there standing across the street looking at her. So you get this long wordless sequence and the agony, a little bit of ecstasy plays out across Streep's face. It's just wrenching all the more so for this little smile she lets out. And at one point he returns it, he comes closer, standing in the middle of the street, but then something about her expression or how she's holding herself, something stops him from coming any closer than that.

50:08Josh Larsen:And, and then when he turns around, gets in his truck and pulls away, then her face just, you know, goes blank. It falls. It's it Streep does what she does and it's devastating. Probably worth noting. Yes, this is a Streep accent role. Francesca came back from Italy with her husband who had served there in world war two. So she's employing an accent throughout here, but my pick, I'm actually going with the no dialogue scene, uh, from the bridges of Madison County, the goodbye glances. Yeah, I think you summed it up well.

50:41Adam Kempenaar:And I think what is so effective about that is not only that little smile that you get and the way she leans in as if she's entreating him forward. But then I'm going to go with the word discovery again. when the character realizes that he's not coming forward. When she realizes what this is not going to be, she doesn't do anything dramatic. She just pulls back slightly. And that pulling back, she's so good at small little gestures like that. I'm going to suggest that Streep, as an actress, with my number two here in a little bit, and maybe even subconsciously, who knows, is able to convey with her characters through gestures like that.

51:33Adam Kempenaar:They're tells she, she, she gives you exactly the psychology of the characters. And it's just that, that subtle little pulling back. We know exactly what, what that character is thinking.

51:43Josh Larsen:Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And this is an entire scene built on those. And it's part of the agony of the scene is, is we don't know. And neither of these characters know exactly how far the other is going to go, wants to go, who's waiting for who, who's going to take the next step. And, and the scene extends beyond this where, you know, her husband actually drives away when he comes back and they end up following Robert's truck. And then you get that, you know, great moment where she puts her hand on the door handle. And it's just, it's like maybe six minutes of her going back and forth, making all those calculations in her mind that Streep plays out entirely on her face.

52:28Adam Kempenaar:My number three, this line is what I'm calling the scene. It's a line of dialogue directly from the scene, and it should tell you exactly what movie it comes from. I'm going back to back early 2000s picks, and I'm going back to back picks that didn't get her nominated Josh, but probably should have in my mind. Now I want to note that's very easy for me to say when no, I did not go back and look at these years and see who was nominated and who I'd kick out. I'm just saying I love both her performances, Susan Orlean and adaptation. And I love her performance here as Eleanor Prentice Shaw and Jonathan Demme's remake of the Manchurian candidate from 2004.

53:10Adam Kempenaar:The line of dialogue is the assassin always dies, baby, as she is explaining to her son, the brainwashed, the lobotomized effectively character played by Liev Schreiber, her son, Raymond Shaw. I believe I haven't seen this in a while. So bear with me if I don't get some of the details exactly right, but I believe it's it's election night or it's election day. And the planning, if you watch the scene, it has to be because she's talking over shots of the Secret Service, checking out the building where the president-elect and the VP-elect, and he's the VP-elect, are going to be speaking that night.

53:53Adam Kempenaar:and where she has orchestrated this assassination that is supposed to take place and the president-elect is going to die. And of course, her son, the VP-elect is going to become the president. This scene, Josh, this is a character who falls into that character realm a little bit for Streep. Not an accent, but the clothes matter, the hair matters, The way the the kind of staccato way she speaks matters. She certainly plays a woman who is very aggressive in a unlike unlike K Graham. She would have no problem telling every man around her and you see her in this movie do it many times every man around her to get out of her way and do exactly what she wants them to do.

54:44Adam Kempenaar:she's used to being the the aggressor in a lot of these situations she's very ruthless she's Machiavellian obviously if you know the film and what she's done to her own son and yet in this scene the way she says that line the assassin always dies baby it's not it's impossible for me to say those words and not I mean it's terrible coming out of my mouth but not say it and make it sound like it's a line from like a film noir or something. It's not a film noir. She's saying that like a mother just telling her her child a universal truth of the world like any of us would when we're reading them a bedtime story or we're just telling them the way the world works.

55:30Adam Kempenaar:What happens to Ben? The assassin always dies, baby.

55:36Josh Larsen:It's necessary for the national human.

55:39Adam Kempenaar:you know we had the complexities of the mother-child relationship to start my list and now Streep is the one playing the mother with this son character early in the scene you see the wounds on his back that she stops on as she's toweling him off he's just gotten out of a bath or shower and yes there's some awkwardness to that we'll touch on that in a moment but she sees the wounds on his back that she played a role in him getting. And she pauses and she reacts, Josh, like a mother, not like a ruthless mother who has long accepted this. She pauses to me like a mother with guilt might, like a mother who doesn't like seeing her son, a child with wounds.

56:24Adam Kempenaar:That's how she feels about it. Even with all of the heinous things that she's done and is about to do, that's how she reacts to seeing those wounds on her child. And even with that line about the assassin, the coldness and the callousness to it, and these things that she clearly has come to terms with, you understand, we as viewers understand that Eleanor Shaw is a monster. But people like Eleanor Shaw in the world, and we know there are people like Eleanor Shaw in the world, they don't believe that they're monsters. And they're certainly not interesting characters if they're played like monsters.

57:04Adam Kempenaar:When you hear her explaining to him... And what she's done and why and what's going to happen, it's clear that she has come up with this character and the way Streep imparts it. She has come up with justification after justification. She is in complete denial. She has convinced herself that it was all correct. and the line, Josh, that slays me or the few lines that slays me. It's the part where she says, and so I let them take you and change you a little bit. Not so much that you would notice. That's where she she betrays that there is this human. There is the mother inside of Eleanor who sacrificed.

57:50Adam Kempenaar:She knows that she sacrificed her baby boy for this greater good and who sleeps at night. by telling herself that not only is it for the greater good and that it's for him so that he can have all the advantages that she never had and that his father never had, but that he's only changed a little bit. And here's where the physicality comes into play is that you see the sadness in her eyes when she says it, but she also, that's the first time where that character in the scene loses her composure a little bit. She can't maintain her stillness. Her head shakes a little bit, and she has to force herself back into character right after that line.

58:34Adam Kempenaar:And so I let them take you and change you a little bit. Not so much that you would notice, but just enough to bring you back to who you really are.

58:49Josh Larsen:And to what you will become.

58:53Adam Kempenaar:And then I said we'd get to it. The scene does also culminate with her kissing him. I don't know how you would describe that kiss, Josh. It does certainly border on lustily. There's hints of an incestuousness, whether that was always there, whether that is something that is new. I don't know that the movie ever does give us more than that, or if it's just simply to suggest another aspect in which she is completely controlling her son. But the other thing about Streep that I want to say is she's so good, not just with the physicality and the gestures, but blocking, which this could all be Demi.

59:34Adam Kempenaar:Let me be clear. But there are stories, there are plenty of stories that actors tell about working with Meryl Streep where they talk about the way she'll position certain things or the way she'll position herself in a scene for certain reasons. And it wouldn't surprise me in this scene where if Streep had something to do with it, where when you watch how the whole scene plays out, she starts on high looking down on him as if she's in a position of authority over him as his mother. And then the scene transitions to her being more at eye level with him as we do actually see her taking more of a motherly type of position with him.

1:00:19Adam Kempenaar:And then by the end, she's down, she's down on her knee in a position that does feel both more supplicating, awkwardly supplicating, but also as if she's trying to imbue him. And she is, that's what the scene's about. She's trying to imbue that character with the power and authority that he's going to assume by the end of the night. And it's just all there in the way she moved. That character moves over the course of the scene. It's a chilly, it's a really chilling, I should say, chilling scene. And just even her voice, the way her voice belies that over the course of that scene is really a wonder.

1:01:09Josh Larsen:Yeah, she's like attempting a transfer of power. That's not really a transfer of power, but, but she's trying to sell that on him in a way I really like Demi's Manchurian candidate. It's one of those, you know, you hear, why are you reheating a classic and why is a classic director bothering? And then it turns out turned out like gangbusters. So it's a really strong film and street, maybe doing a dry run for Miranda Priestly here a little bit. I don't know. There's, there are certainly, that would be just two years later. And there are certainly some connections between those characters. All right.

1:01:42Josh Larsen:For number two, here's some homework that, that paid off for me. My pick is, well, I'm doing it from Silkwood. Mike Nichols, again, here as director Streep is playing Karen Silkwood, who in real life died in a one car crash while in the midst of exposing lack safety standards at the Oklahoma plutonium factory where she worked. this is maybe my favorite street performance that I watched in all my homework Adam this is the one I was thinking of when you were talking about that moment in adaptation where she's as loose as I've ever seen her playing Karen Silkwood now obviously this is a movie that's part paranoid thriller and as the tension rises that alters a little bit but um she retains this throughout I think and really has it at the beginning when we're introduced to her uh she just Karen Silkwood on the floor of this factory, she's joking with coworkers.

1:02:37Josh Larsen:You know, she breezes into the lunchroom, playfully takes a bite from a coworker's sandwich. And you get a sense that she's this character, this Karen as envisioned in the movie. She's at once a breath of fresh air, but also kind of annoying. Some people, some people think she's great. Some people are like roll their eyes. And it's, it's such great character building because you get the sense watching this, that she almost became, and again, this is the movies, Karen, she almost became an activist by accident, just on account of her instinctively iconoclastic attitude. This is just who she is.

1:03:16Josh Larsen:And once she gets nudged in that direction, it's where she's got to go. And then my pick, which I'll get to the moment, speaks to that. But yeah, I also want to mention, man, does Streep have real heat with Kurt Russell, who is great in this movie. Again, maybe people are saying, duh, but first time I watched Silkwood and I've thought, I think of Russell as a different sort of presence in movies, not as the supporting character love interest. And here he does play Karen Silkwood's live-in lover. They share a number of really strong scenes, but I love her with him the most at the very end. This is essentially their goodbye.

1:03:59Josh Larsen:It's early morning. She's gotten up and she tells him she's heading out to the factory and then she's going to a union meeting that night and he asks her, he asks her not to go. He says something like, I don't want you doing that. I don't know how late this meeting is going to go tonight.

1:04:14Adam Kempenaar:I don't want you doing that.

1:04:17Josh Larsen:Well, I'm doing it. You don't owe the union anything.

1:04:22Adam Kempenaar:Let's not fight.

1:04:23Josh Larsen:You don't owe the New York Times anything.

1:04:27Adam Kempenaar:Let's not have a fight now. Okay.

1:04:34Josh Larsen:Okay. He just completely melts. He just melts in that moment. He like, he halfheartedly tried to play the quote unquote man card, knew it didn't work. And then she pulls that out and he's just like, yeah, I'm helpless here. It's Streep's smile that really says it all. Again, she's not trying to be defiant. She's not trying to cause trouble. It's, it's just who she is, who she is, who this woman is. Um, and Streep lets us know that through a smile. And I love throughout the movie, you know, Karen is often smiling at her own little thoughts and she doesn't share them out loud. And, and what a choice, whether that's written in the script or it's something Streep chose to do to not let the audience in has to be an enormous risk for an actor.

1:05:23Josh Larsen:When you might think your entire job is to always give the audience access, or at least a hint, a little peek into, here's the word I'm sure I've used, interiority. And so often in this movie, Streep lets Karen have her own little private amusements that even we don't know what she's smiling and laughing at. And I just love that detail. Um, yeah, I really liked this movie. Russell's great. Share, share great as their lesbian roommate. Um, what a role, what a performance. I mean, a very complicated role that I know some people have issues with, but, um, share, I think is really strong here and Streep just so refreshing, maybe her least to go back to that word precise, maybe her least precise performance.

1:06:10Josh Larsen:But again, that's part of the magic trick is that of course there's precision and every choice of when to smile, when to laugh, when to look towards another character or look away and hold that private joke. Those are all precise choices, but she makes them feel that she just makes them feel incredibly of the instant moment here. They're invisible. Those choices are invisible with Street always.

1:06:35Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Yeah. It does. It does feel that way. And Silkwood's another one of those that was on a lot when I was younger. I feel like I've seen the entire movie and I remember the unapologetic nature of that character and that, that fierceness in Streep. But when it came down to rewatching the movie, especially because she got a nomination for it, it was watching this one or it was watching Postcards from the Edge. And I made my choice because I wanted to watch a movie that I don't know, even though she starts off the movie almost killing herself with an overdose, I felt like it might be a little bit more fun than Silkwood.

1:07:11Adam Kempenaar:So that was my choice.

1:07:13Josh Larsen:It definitely gets intense. And then I will say also, you know, and this is maybe to the point of Streep's movies themselves reaching limits. I do like Silkwood quite a bit. Nickel's handling of the paranoid elements and the thriller elements, which start, it gets a little rushed in the end. It's just not as, let's just say it's not as precise as Streep is.

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1:10:51Adam Kempenaar:That's U-R-E-S-T-A.com. Speaking of intense and not fun. My number two choice and both my top two picks here are obvious. I'm not trying to trick anybody here. I knew they would be on my list when we decided to do our top five Meryl Streep scenes. It's definitely true that I appreciate the William Styron book, Sophie's choice more than I appreciate the Alan Pakula movie Sophie's choice. I think the book Sophie's choice by Styron is one of the greatest American novels that I've read. It's, it's that rich, that incredible. I think the movie's pretty good. I think obviously Streep is incredible in it.

1:11:43Adam Kempenaar:I can't believe I rewatched for this list, the choice. Do I get a medal? Do I get something for rewatching the choice? Josh, I mean, you maybe we'll hear more about this. You, you watch this movie for the first time. That's right. I am forbidding Sam to play any audio or to show any video from this scene. I don't want anyone to relive it. I'm not going to describe it in any detail. Well, what I know about this scene or some of the lore about this scene where her character, Sophie, I'll just give you the setup, right? The choice. And I remember we all have grown up hearing this term, Sophie's Choice.

1:12:32Adam Kempenaar:And yet I managed to go. I didn't read the book, Sophie's Choice, until I was, I think, about 23 years old. and I managed to go 23 years of my life and not ever know what the choice actually was. And I remember reading the book and getting to it and just slowly taking the book and putting it down and not talking to anybody or picking the book back up for a few hours. I just, I was not going to process it further. after experiencing that. So I didn't know what it was. And maybe for people that don't know it, I don't want to spoil it. I'm not going to get into it anymore. It is the choice scene, though, that I'm going to go with.

1:13:23Adam Kempenaar:And there's lore around it that would make sense that we've heard with scenes like this that are so harrowing emotionally that it might have been shot in one take. That when you watch it, And you could believe it because if I remember correctly, you only see Streep. The shots of Streep seem to all be just from one camera angle and of one size, a medium close-up basically or a close-up. So maybe they all were from one take. But I'm pretty sure I also saw her in an AFI interview where she was talking about the filming of this scene. And the funny, the payoff of the story was that it was 4 a.m. or something.

1:14:07Adam Kempenaar:And she was talking about how amazing a director Alan Pakula was, how he was so in tune to the actors. And he cared about what you were doing so much. And that was his real gift as a director. And she did a take of this scene, a close-up of this scene. And there was silence. And she thought, wow, I just devastated him. I can't believe it. He's speechless. And then she looks over and both he and Nestor Almendroff, the cinematographer, are just passed out asleep in their chairs. So that would suggest unless they were talking about, unless she was talking about a different scene in a concentration camp, obviously then they shot more than one.

1:14:50Adam Kempenaar:They shot more than one take. But she's also said this is a scene where she says, I didn't act. She met with the little girl that was playing her daughter for the first time earlier that day. They had this sort of bonding moment where they played together. They had fun together. It somehow then put her more at ease, actually, as an actress to have that moment with her rather than just having to go then shoot the scene with her. And then her phrase was, she said, I didn't act. I didn't act. The scene, the scene just happened. And, and what I felt is what you see pouring out on screen. So what I will say about it in terms of my list, Josh, this is where I was going with the gesture part.

1:15:43Adam Kempenaar:whether I'd love to ask, obviously I'd love to ask Meryl Streep about this and see if my theory holds any water or if she would completely shoot all of it down or only part of it down. But rewatching it actually a couple of times for this list today, there is that moment of discovery. And the moment of discovery for this character is when the commandant, the commandant has to say a few times what the choice is for it to really register with Sophie, as you would imagine, right? Because it's so horrific. The moment where it truly registers, where you see Streep as Sophie register what she is going to have to do, she just does this thing where she quickly nuzzles her daughter.

1:16:36Adam Kempenaar:She nuzzles her daughter, puts her nose into her daughter's cheek, And then she goes back to looking at the commandant and interacting with him. And for me watching that, that tells me that that character has processed the choice she's going to have to make. And even though she's still 30 to 60 seconds away from actually making the choice, psychologically, she's actually already made the choice. She knows that's telling us that she's made the choice, that that moment with her daughter is of significance. It's not just comforting. It's of greater significance than that. that that character that for that character, it felt like something she was compelled to do because her brain was already ahead of her, her body was ahead of her brain.

1:17:32Adam Kempenaar:Actually, I would say, I would say it that way. So I'm going to be, I'm going to be vague because like I said, even though this movie and this book is certainly it's past the date of, of spoiling, I'm just going to leave it at that. And I'm going with the choice from Sophie's choice.

1:17:46Josh Larsen:well i i'm at my number one and i've got sophie's choice at number one adam it's not this actual moment though definitely obviously had to give it as much consideration as you did and to your point your description of it um you know it happened so quickly is was my shock and as you said watching this the first time um the whole sequence knowing of it as its legendary reputation that this is what the movie is. I expected it to be this drawn out, agonizing sequence and it all rushes by so quickly. Yet Streep, to your point, makes the decisions and the choices within this tight timeframe to give it so many layers of terror and somehow feel impulsive.

1:18:35Josh Larsen:That's what struck me is that it felt to me like Sophie, this woman, And it was just her final decision kind of just burst out of her almost instinctively and revealed things to her about her relationships to her children she didn't even know, perhaps. But I love your point about the body being ahead of the mind where the body might have known those things, right? So, yeah, it's just, you know, it's one of those legendary scenes by reputation that absolutely holds up. But the reason I didn't go there, though, is related to my overall impression of Sophie's Choice, which, again, very good movie.

1:19:18Josh Larsen:I believe you that the Styron novel is better because it feels a little overpacked and in some ways disjointed. And it felt like an adaptation of a massive piece of literature. Yes, that's fair. Still a good movie, though. Still a very good movie. Um, but anyway, I, I think I want a different direction because that moment works. The choice works for me for all the reasons we just talked about, but also because of the two plus hours of groundwork Streep has laid in creating this character for before we get to that point. Um, because thanks to it, thanks to all of that, Sophie is not just a victim of circumstance when we get here.

1:20:00Josh Larsen:She is a pre-complicated woman who comes to the moment already with all sorts of guilt and conflicting loyalties and compromises she has made. In a way, this sounds awful, but her life has horribly rehearsed her for this moment already. And so one of those places we see this ground being laid is the scene I'm picking. I'm going to call it, I don't even know what is the truth because it's how she kind of kicks off going into this confession slash memory. This is earlier in the movie, but later in Sophie's life. So it's earlier in the film we're watching, but comes way after the choice scene, actually, chronologically in her life.

1:20:53Josh Larsen:This is in post-war Brooklyn, and she's trying to flee the ghosts of her past by starting this new life with this erratic Jewish lover played by Kevin Kline and their downstairs neighbor played by Peter McNichol, an aspiring Southern writer who I'm assuming is the styren stand in in the movie. So this character, the neighbor, Stingo, he's been the recipient of a few confessions from Sophie over the course of the movie, including her choice, the scene you just talked about. and I'm going to go with an earlier confessional conversation they have. And this is where she starts telling Stingo about her father, who previously, I think one of the first scenes they met, she talks about how much she deeply loves her father.

1:21:36Josh Larsen:Here, however, she reveals to him that actually he was a prominent anti-Semite in Poland who called in public speeches for the extermination of the Jewish population. Now, you mentioned Pakula director and cinematographer Nestor Almendros. As she talks about her part in all of that in this scene, they shoot her in a largely uninterrupted take. It's almost like an Ingmar Bergman style portrait shot. It has these deep blacks surrounding her face. And she's looking as many times as I've watched this and stared at stills. I'm still not certain if she's looking slightly off camera or into the camera.

1:22:16Josh Larsen:It's somehow Streep has found this middle space that's so unnerving.

1:22:21Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. And a little uncanny Valley ish, almost a little bit. Yeah.

1:22:25Josh Larsen:Yeah. And it works because what she's, what she's holding here is a vacant haunted stare. Um, and she holds that throughout. And the feeling I had, it's as if Sophie exists in two eras at the same time. It's as, it's as if she's, she's left the time space continuum in an awful way, um, to live in the past as she's recalling it. She's ostensibly looking at Stingo, but it just feels like she's looking sort of at us and just through everything. She's just looking through everything. So yeah, that's where I ultimately landed. After watching this movie for the first time, I'm going to go with basically one of her confessions.

1:23:05Josh Larsen:I don't even know what is the truth.

1:23:08Adam Kempenaar:What's interesting, Josh, is I might have actually gone with that scene instead of the choice because that image, that haunting image that you described is the image from Sophie's choice that lingers with me the most. But I, it's been so long since I've seen Sophie's choice that I didn't remember the context for it and I couldn't find it. I was Googling random things, trying to, trying to find that moment. And until complicated until you posted it. I couldn't, I couldn't find it.

1:23:39Josh Larsen:It's complicated because as I said, she has these series of confessions and she kind of moves and opens up more and more with Stingo. And so, yeah, yeah. It's definitely a journey that as I said at the top, like Streep is doing and the, and the screenplay, you know, and the direction they're doing this work so that that moment that, that you chose hits as powerfully as it does.

1:24:02Adam Kempenaar:So this is this is true of especially any top five like this where you're talking about acting and you're trying to describe this ineffable quality of the best performers. And you really just want to say, just watch the scene. Why are we trying to describe this thing they're doing and and break it down in a sort of technical way when when it's there? And I especially feel that way about my number one, which is the I'm leaving you scene from Kramer versus Kramer. But this is another one of those journeys. And I'm sure it's there on the page because it is. It is there on the page. Surely the script contains this character's arc simply from, it's a literal journey from apartment, inside the apartment door to hallway to elevator, right?

1:24:59And from marriage to just outside the marriage to out of the marriage.

1:25:06Adam Kempenaar:It's all of those things. But but watching how Streep as Joanna processes all of that for me is is something every time I watch it. And it's it's the anxiety that you sense right away as she's watching Dustin Hoffman being Ted, being this character that he always is. You know, he's on the phone and he's talking about his day and he's really not paying her any attention at all. and she's being silent mostly early on in the scene, right? But you still see in her face and you see in her chest the way she's breathing, just a little extra heavy, that she's very anxious. Of course she is. She's about to tell her husband something she's never said to him before, something momentous that she's leaving.

1:25:55Adam Kempenaar:But it's been a long time here again, since I've seen Kramer versus Kramer, but this comes as a bombshell. I don't think he has any sense that there's really any problems in their marriage. You watched it more recently. Is there any sense that there's really a struggle for him? For him? No. I mean, that's part of the character is how oblivious he's been. Exactly. So so it's it is going to be a huge bomb for her to drop, not only for her as a character to say it out loud, but for this character, Ted, to have it delivered to him. Of course, she's anxious. But then you see it. You see the way Streep just a little bit.

1:26:33Adam Kempenaar:the more he is showing how oblivious he is, the more she hardens just a little bit, that she gets a little bit of resolve. Her words and her actions then become just a little bit swifter. It reinforces that she's making the right choice. And you see it, even though she's not saying anything. And then she does start to let it out finally what she's going to do. the moment for me is the beat right after Ted says where he's now trying to process what's really happening. And he says, sorry, I was late, but I was busy making a living, right? Come on. Okay. Can we, can we stop now? And here's that, that moment that Streep just sits in that long pause and, and her response when she speaks, it isn't, it seems like it's not to him.

1:27:24Adam Kempenaar:it's it's completely internal it's it's an utterance to herself but out loud it's a reckoning with herself that she is she's resolved she's really doing it she grabs her purse and she she looks down to the right and then she picks her head up and what does she say she says so Can we stop now?

1:27:49Josh Larsen:That's everything.

1:27:50Adam Kempenaar:Like she's going to say something more, but then she clips herself off. And what does she say? That's everything. That's everything. That's everything she needs to tell him about what's going to happen next. She's told him about the bills and the dry cleaning and how much money she took from their bank account. That's all settled. All those details that she as the wife has to take care of in this marriage. But that's also everything for this marriage, for this relationship. She's saying that's everything. It's a wrap. It's a wrap on this marriage. And everything about the departure, the way he grabs her, he grabs her bag as she tries to exit the door.

1:28:35Adam Kempenaar:So what does she do? She just goes without it. She has to, now that she's finally said it and she's resolved to do it, she can't go back in. And so if he's going to grab the bag, right, he's just going to, you know, she's finally going to just go. He's already dragged her back in once. So then once she heads out the door, he she just lets him take the bag. And the way she breaks down in the hallway, Josh, because she's shown this resolve. She's been assertive here, but that doesn't change the fact that she understands the severity of this moment, that she is ending her marriage, that she is walking out on her son.

1:29:10Adam Kempenaar:She doesn't know what the future is going to bring. And so and she even still she even still feels the need to comply in a way with him and diffuse the situation, because when he presses her on it, what does she say? It's not you. It's me. It's my fault. That's her. That's her answer. So you get you get those layers of assertiveness, like I said, but also she is still so fragile. and that's that's street in that scene through both the non-verbal parts and the verbal parts playing so many different layers in joanna what are you doing where are you going come on just

1:29:50Josh Larsen:tell me what i did that's all just tell me what i did that's so terrible then what is it it's me it's my fault you just married the wrong person that's all i can't let's just go inside please I can't. I tried. I swear. Joanne, please. No, just, I'm sorry. No, no, don't make me go in there. Please, please don't make me go in there. Don't make me go in there. She is so good in this scene and she creates such a full person in these few opening moments. Is it possible she's too good? I'm sure this is, you know, a standard complaint that's been brushed aside for Kramer versus Kramer. Don't criticize the movie you wanted, criticize the one you were given.

1:30:34Josh Larsen:But the fact that Joanna comes so fully to life, I really had trouble with the movie sidelining her. And again, I know it's supposed to be his story for so much of its running time. She's great again when she appears later on the stand. And when they talk, I think in the lot, you know, but it's, yeah, this is, this is my probably my number six, my honorable mention. I almost went with it because she's so good, as you described, Adam. But I struggled. Here's another street movie that I liked, but had some reservations about. And for me, it was just the, man, what if this had been a 50-50 movie of both of these incredibly rich, conflicted, complicated, conflicting characters.

1:31:24Josh Larsen:What might we have gotten? And I just felt for the next, what, 40, maybe 50 an hour, I felt Joanna missing from Kramer versus Kramer. And it's to her credit, let's say, for a top five strip scenes. Let's say she did that to the movie. She was too good, Adam. She was too good.

1:31:46Adam Kempenaar:It's not shocking that we both love this scene. And I think it's a fairly famous scene in her filmography. And yet more often than not, when you, when you look at reviews of her movies and famous scenes, the stand scene is the one that's brought up more often,

1:32:03Josh Larsen:but that's the Oscar moment,

1:32:05Adam Kempenaar:but it is, but this scene is the one that, that for me always hits me harder. There's a lot more going on here for sure. I think so too. Those are our top five Meryl Streep scenes. We'd love to hear your thoughts, your favorites, email us feedback at filmspot.com. spotting.com or.net. I'm sure you have Josh, some honorable mentions. You said what your number six was. It's this one. It's my number one. What are some others that might've made your list? Uh, if it was a top 10 or that you considered, I mean, death becomes her is worth

1:32:38Josh Larsen:checking out. If you haven't seen it, she's having a ton of fun there. And that opening musical number is really something. The French Lieutenant's woman is another film I did for my homework. I was kind of hoping you picked it, Adam, because I almost did. I'm still processing that, what that movie is doing. Um, but she has an early instance. She's basically playing an actress who's in a period movie that takes place on an English coastal town. And she has an early moment where this woman who's in distress is at the end of a pier in the middle of a storm. and she looks back at a character, I almost considered that look alone for my list.

1:33:19Josh Larsen:That's the shot, right? Yeah. It's incredible.

1:33:22Adam Kempenaar:It's so funny that you say that because it's the image I think most people immediately associate with that film for good reason. This will come up when we talk about Rome Open City 2. What is it about? why is it that there are certain shots that can just be so captivating and can just stay in your memory? There's something about the combination, obviously, of the shot choice. In this case, it's a close up, but the lighting, everything about the choice. I mean, that's an outdoor shot, but the lens choice that just your brain cannot let it go. And it's that shot. And yet when I watched it, I didn't think, I didn't think, Oh, I should put that on my list because all Streep is doing is looking at the camera for a few seconds, but you're not wrong.

1:34:12Josh Larsen:Yeah. I think as we've covered, like sometimes that's all she needs in some of our picks. So yeah, I'm glad I got a chance to see that. Um, and then looking back at other street films, you know, I have seen over the years. Um, I, I considered some scenes from out of Africa. I think I alluded to this

1:34:29Adam Kempenaar:when we did our Redford top five scenes or movies.

1:34:33Josh Larsen:Adam, she kind of really out-acts him out of Africa. She has some great moments, and she's wonderful in these titles. The Iron Lady, Into the Woods, The River Wild, The Hours. A movie probably people don't remember a lot, Evening, which she has some great moments in. And then, you know, Mamma Mia, sure. She's the best thing about Mamma Mia. Let me say that.

1:34:56Adam Kempenaar:Okay. probably not too bold of a statement i really do like her in the hours i couldn't i couldn't pick an individual scene of hers though i know there are some standouts i like her in defending your life the albert brooks movie i could have found a scene from that little women one of my favorite movies of the last 10 years and there's a montage i'll link to it i'll put it on the list page with this top five there's a montage of every because she's a supporting character there's a montage of all of her scenes. And guess what? Every single one of them is gold. Every scene that Meryl Streep is in and little women is fantastic.

1:35:31Adam Kempenaar:So I'll now move into actual individual scenes. The deer hunter, the, the scene where De Niro's Michael does come home and she has set up this party and he's intentionally skipped it because he just can't be around people and doesn't want to be around people. He really just wants to be alone with her and that, that reunion and just the tenderness of that relationship. I do really like that scene. So I'm mentioning it, but even better than that scene is the one that follows where they have finally gotten a little closer and more intimate with each other. And when she says to him, can, can we just comfort each other?

1:36:14Adam Kempenaar:And they spend, they spend a night in bed and holding each other and just the way she delivers that line is really the, the moment, the moment for me, the, the French Lieutenant's woman, other than that shot, the scene I was thinking of was the French Lieutenant's whore, the scene where she, she tells the story, the story within a story within a story where, where she, that character is revealing to Jeremy Irons character, her, her backstory and how she, She became so shamed. But the way the precision is all over that scene and the way the way, Josh, that she leans into the pronunciation of whore is just so delicious at the end of it.

1:37:04Josh Larsen:Yeah, it's related to my question about that movie, but we'll have to save that for another time.

1:37:09Adam Kempenaar:OK, I didn't know that we would ever get into the French lieutenant's woman on this show, but I did go through. I did go through a phase where I thought not Meryl Streep. I thought Jeremy Irons was the greatest actor on the planet. That was maybe 30 years ago. But so be it. Again, our favorite Meryl Streep scenes. We would love to hear your picks. Feedback at filmspotting.com.

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1:38:02Josh Larsen:Hello, beautiful. I'm Amy Eric, founder of Madison Reed, a hair color company I named after my daughter. Forget everything you know about hair color. The mess, the smell, the hassle, the damage. We're female-founded and female-led. we've transformed the hair color experience with ingredients that care for your hair and award-winning color on your terms at home or at our hair color bars. The future of hair color is here at Madison Reed. This is Radhi Dabluk here from A Really Good Cry. I absolutely love being outdoors even if it's just stepping outside for a bit of fresh air between meals or taking a mindful walk to clear my head.

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1:40:33Josh Larsen:There are two ways through life. The way of nature and the way of grace.

1:40:44Josh Larsen:you have to choose which one you'll follow a few weeks ago josh we knocked out a big

1:40:52Adam Kempenaar:pantheon project title maybe none bigger citizen kane the very first title actually added to the film spotting pantheon yes 20 plus years ago because of that never really been talked about in the history of the show and it turned 85. So despite, or even with the Pantheon project, that was another reason why we felt like we finally had to give this movie it's due, even though surely it's been talked about to death. We'd never talked about it. We had fun discussing citizen.

1:41:25Josh Larsen:How do you feel? Yeah. It sounds like you're happy with it to get that monkey off your back. You know, it's been intimidating to have to actually have this review we did it i think it worked out well uh of course we pitted against casablanca so we kind of

1:41:40Adam Kempenaar:we cheated maybe a little bit with that conversation next week we're going to go from one of the oldest films not the oldest but one of the oldest films in the pantheon to what is the youngest the youngest is a little bit of trivia for you here terrence malick's the tree of life it's the baby i didn't realize that at only 15 wow unless we're wrong because we're usually wrong about our own Pantheon. And it's possible.

1:42:06Josh Larsen:This is true. It's probably details are off. I mean, we're a little stingy about putting newer movies in there. I think I'm going to say it previous to our review. I still feel pretty good about having three of life in the film spotting Pantheon.

1:42:23Adam Kempenaar:I do as well. We reviewed it. This was just pre you joining the show in 2011, but that's right. Did get a review when it came out in 2011. you obviously reviewed it in fact i do believe i'm correct in saying that even though you would not join the show when this movie came out you would join the show when we did our top 10 films of that year and you and i both named the tree of life see we knew we would get along great and that 15 16 years later whatever we'd still be doing this we named the tree of life our number one film of that year.

1:42:59Josh Larsen:Yeah. I really, I really pulled the fast one on you, Adam. You know, I was like, if, if I'm going to get this show to, you know, to, to pick me to join, I'm just going to have to agree with their, their favorite film of the year. And so I put tree of life at number one, it's time. I feel like I'm safe enough. Now I can tell you, I actually really hate the film. And it was, that was all just a gambit. Okay.

1:43:24Adam Kempenaar:What, what film from your list, look back at it and tell me what really was number one. Impress us. It was the tree of life.

1:43:30Josh Larsen:It was the tree of life. You may be thinking of Cedar Rapids, which was number two.

1:43:34Adam Kempenaar:I wanted you to play along. I wanted you to play along and tell me that there was some other 2011 film that you know I would hate or think is not worthy. And it was your real number one.

1:43:44Josh Larsen:I mean, I think Cedar Rapids would be an excuse for you to say, we can't touch this guy with a 10-foot pole.

1:43:52Adam Kempenaar:Was that your number two? Was that 2011? It was number two. Okay. See, that would have been gold. You're true number one, and you just were trying to trick everyone that you were a real serious movie watcher and critic with The Tree of Life. Have you revisited The Tree of Life at all since 2011? I have not.

1:44:10Josh Larsen:Yeah, at least three times just a month ago. No, maybe a month and a half ago for one of my courses here in the theology and the arts program. So yeah, I will try not to bring too much of that master's intense thinking to our conversation, but there may be a few things that will be worth touching on.

1:44:33Adam Kempenaar:Do you just want to go solo on this?

1:44:35Josh Larsen:I can sit it out.

1:44:36Adam Kempenaar:You have enough to say.

1:44:38Josh Larsen:No, no, no. I don't think anybody wants that. But I did, not shockingly, find a few things new and interesting, which happens when a movie is this good. Okay.

1:44:49Adam Kempenaar:The Tree of Life is available VOD on most platforms. I don't know that you need to watch it three times like Josh has, but it probably wouldn't hurt either. Also next week, we will have the latest results of our current deeply flawed film spotting poll asking you to choose one and only one summer 2026 movie. You can go with Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey or anything else. It's Nolan versus The Field. and what's good about this is we will tell you that currently Christopher Nolan is winning, but he's not running away with it. Lots of great others being suggested. It's a lot closer than we might have predicted.

1:45:28Adam Kempenaar:So there's still time to vote. There's still time to make your pick. Tell us what other 2026 summer movie you are looking forward to more than The Odyssey. You can vote and leave a comment at filmspotting.net. That also coming to you soon will be the second film in our dissident cinema marathon, Roberto Rossellini's Rome Open City. I think we're going to put that in the feed on Monday, just like we dropped The Great Dictator in your feed on Monday. And I have no idea. I don't know what your rating or review is, but I'm still going to go out on a limb and say that we are continuing our good start.

1:46:07Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, that's fair to say. Yes. Okay. We will also share with you that, if you recall, we had announced the winner of our Film Spotting Madness 1940s contest, but we hadn't officially updated the bracket at that point because there was still some hours left in the voting. Sam Thompson in L.A., we noted it. Too Many Hitchcocks was his bracket name. He's the one that got to pick our Madness draft. We're going to do the new Hollywood draft coming up. is for the internal bracket competition between me and you and Sam and Mike Merrigan. Well, I thought there was a chance. Maybe I had a chance, but probably not because I was the only one who picked Citizen Kane to beat Casablanca and Casablanca won.

1:46:57Adam Kempenaar:So you were far enough back. I thought maybe I'd still finish third and not fourth, but that was not the case. Josh, Sam, Sam jumped all the way up to 11th overall out of the several hundred Mike Merrigan 25th. Josh, how about you? Maybe your first top 100 finish 74th. Um, sure. Okay. Maybe not. Yeah. Maybe not. I don't know. We don't keep meticulous records around here. I unfortunately dropped to, I was ninth. I was ninth and I dropped all the way down to 115th. But what matters most is that I am fourth out of four in this competition.

1:47:40Josh Larsen:And it was a tortoise and a hare scenario there with you and me, Adam. I just had to hold out. I'd get there eventually.

1:47:48Adam Kempenaar:Actually, I'm reading for the first time here. I'm learning that the booby prize is I'm going to have to watch. Daughter of Adam Sandler, Sadie Sandler in the new Netflix comedy roommates. That's what I'm being told my punishment is. I thought now, wait a minute.

1:48:07Josh Larsen:Now, wait a minute. I thought we dropped this a year or two ago. The loser. This isn't the year for me to bring this up, actually. But since, since you've been honorable enough to actually report on your loss, you could have just let this out of the show. I could have. Yeah. Yeah. I thought we talked about maybe even like granting the winner something. I mean, look at Sam at 11. Is that now here's for some, for the stats, for the records has any of the three of us, Mike, you know, Godfather, he might've done better than 11th at some point. Oh, he won it. He won it once. I believe. There you go.

1:48:44Josh Larsen:Like the entire competition. Have you, me or Sam? I mean, I know I haven't. Has any placed higher than 11? I don't believe so. Other than Mike. No, I don't think so. So Sam deserves a prize. He deserves a prize. Sam is not only producing film spotting SVU. I've learned now that I'm catching up on episodes. He's like on air doing like he's in contest season. He's talent. Yeah. He needs a day off. We need. He definitely needs a day off. The internal bracket. we need to give Sam a day off.

1:49:17Adam Kempenaar:Well, I wasn't prepared to give him a day off, but Sam, check your mailbox. Tote bag. Film spotting tote bag. And also tell me what size t-shirt you wear. I'm going to try a lot harder next year. I can hook you up. I know that. We mentioned it last week that madness is coming soon, sooner for family members because we do have our 32 film 20s and 30s madness coming this summer. The results of that will feed into and factor into super madness next year. The elite eight from every decade, 1920s through the 2010s will be included in super madness next year. Now, Josh, I do want to just say one quick thing about that because there was a little bit and it might have only been one person.

1:50:11Adam Kempenaar:I'm not going to call that person out, but I want to make sure that there's no confusion about this because it would make for an incredibly boring film spotting madness. If this was the case, when we say we're taking the elite eight from every one of these decades and throwing them into a pool of 72, and then we'll get it down to 64 for a tournament. We don't mean we're doing like real March madness does our bracket. It doesn't do that anyway, where you can put films in different regions and we're going to seed and have like the 1980s here and the 70s here and 60s here. And then the number ones are going to meet.

1:50:48Adam Kempenaar:No, the whole point is we know how those have already played out. We've done those decades. We know what the number one film is. The whole point is that we want to see how the number four seeded film or how the number four finisher from the 1980s will do against the number two film from the 1950s. more chaos. It's about chaos with the best films, according to film spotting listeners of the past 80, 90 years. That's, that's the point of super madness. Got it. I think it'll be good. All right.

1:51:19Josh Larsen:Should, should be a lot of chaotic fun. I know everyone's chomping at the bit for us to get to massacre theater, but let me give a very quick thanks to the folks who came out recently to our meetup in Edinburgh. We had a good time. We had talked Streep a little bit around the group. There was every opinion you could imagine on Mother Mary, which makes sense from loving it to really not liking it and everywhere in between. We had two family members there. So we talked a little bit about the bonus content we offer and what their experience has been as family members. Actually, um, one of them, Kyle, Adam, you know, Kyle just wrote in when we did our bonus episode for April, the ask us anything episode.

1:52:04Kyle was the person who wrote in about how to watch movies as a young parent.

1:52:09Josh Larsen:How do you fit them in? So, so he was there. We got to talk a little bit more about that. Steven, I said, ignore your kids. That was my advice. I didn't give him that advice. No. Okay. No. Uh, Steven is another family member. He's been listening since Cinecast and recently joined the family. So thank you, Stephen, for your loyalty and joining Micah and Elizabeth were there as well. So it was a really great time. That's it, Adam. The expense accounts, you'll be happy. The overseas meetups are done. Next up, Chicago. I'll be back in Chicago in June and there for Film Spotting Fest 2.

1:52:49Adam Kempenaar:I saw the bill. I saw the bill for Berlin, Josh. Yeah. We'll just leave it there.

1:52:57Josh Larsen:Well, usually it's beer. Berlin was cocktails. Sorry.

1:53:05Adam Kempenaar:It must have been. I don't know. Maybe a dish or two. But you know what? They deserve it, especially with one listener traveling many hours to come to that meetup. I'm running out of synonyms. I'm going to go with the Edinburgh Alliance. I like it. Is that what it was? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why not?

1:53:23Josh Larsen:We can call it an alliance. Absolutely. All right. It is now time for the return of Massacre Theater. It's been so long, I probably need to remind you, this is where Adam and I perform a scene. You get a chance to win a film spotting prize. All right. Adam, are you ready? Have you prepared? Have you been, what's the term? In NBA circles, you know, when a player comes back from a break or an injury, they're ramping up. Have you been ramping up for this?

1:53:53Adam Kempenaar:Not at all. Definitely not. Did people think I had finally killed this segment off? No, it just goes on hiatus when we have madness. Right. And it always comes back.

1:54:03Josh Larsen:You can't kill it. No. Would the detours assemble? Would the detours assemble? Would the detours assemble? Would the detours assemble? My dear boy, why do you say that? Why do you say twerk?

1:54:17Adam Kempenaar:Well, you should say it like I said. I would make some comments here, Josh, and probably give away a few hints. But I think even changing a word or two, the dialogue itself is more than enough for our audience. Don't you think?

1:54:32Josh Larsen:Probably. I hope there will be a lot of entries because I think people will get this. Now, you're playing. You usually play the woman's part. Yes. Is that still the case here? the female part? I think it qualifies. It qualifies. Okay. So you'll be in your comfort zone.

1:54:52Adam Kempenaar:I should be. Not British, though. We'll see if I give her a British accent. That's true. Even though I'm not intentionally doing so. Are you ready? You start it off. And action.

1:55:05Josh Larsen:I think it's time for me to give us a pep talk and explain some things. A very long time ago.

1:55:10Adam Kempenaar:May I have a word with you? Privately?

1:55:14Josh Larsen:Well, we're... In a hole here where...

1:55:18Adam Kempenaar:Just on the other side of this mineral deposit, follow me. I'm going to lose my temper now. When? Right now. Well, when?

1:55:32Adam Kempenaar:Twelve years ago, you made a promise to me while we were caged inside that trap that if we survived, you would never steal another chicken, turkey, goose, duck, or squab, whatever they are. And I believed you. Why? why did you lie to me because i'm a wild animal and scene scene i think i think we came back with

1:55:56Josh Larsen:a vengeance oh yeah we were good little little hint of british at some point but that's not a

1:56:02Adam Kempenaar:bad thing i do put on the same voice i put on the same voice all the time i i think i'm i'm over all we're back. I'm one dimensional. What can I say? If you know what film we just massacred email the movie's title, your name, and your location to feedback at filmspotting.com. The deadline is Monday, May 18th. We'll select the winner randomly from all the correct entries and announce it in a couple of weeks. Josh, that is our show.

1:56:29Josh Larsen:If you want to connect with us on social media, find Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, Letterboxd, and YouTube at filmspotting. You can find me there at Larson. on film. Actually, you can also find us both on Blue Sky. Come on over. Try Blue Sky. We are independently produced and listener supported. You can support the show by joining the Film Spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com. You can listen early and ad-free. You'll also get monthly bonus episodes, a weekly newsletter, and access to the entire show archive. For show t-shirts and other merch, go to filmspotting.net slash shop.

1:57:07Adam Kempenaar:Out in limited release, Josh, I don't know if this was on your radar during your research for our summer movie draft, but I considered it Lucretia Martel, Our Land. Yeah. A documentary. Definitely looking forward to this one. A 2009 murder that took place in an Argentine indigenous community. I believe that it is Martel's first documentary. And we did include Martel in our 2017 new Argentine cinema marathon, The Headless Woman, La Cienega. So one that we are definitely planning to see. Out in wide release, you can see Mortal Kombat 2. You can see Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft. That tour is in 3D.

1:57:48Adam Kempenaar:You can also see Hugh Jackman, Emma Thompson, and some farm animals in The Sheep Detectives. My notes tell me that it has a 95 % fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. You go, Sheep Detectives. You go. Next week in the Film Spotting feed, you will get Rome Open City from our Dissident Cinema Marathon. You'll get Film Spotting SVU, where Matt and Jordan will review Netflix's four-part Lord of the Flies series. Not aware of this. And this is why, again, broken record, we have Matt and Jordan to tell us about these things. That's right. That we should be aware of, or maybe we should continue being oblivious to.

1:58:27Adam Kempenaar:Listen to them and find out. Indeed. Friday's show, our big episode will be The Tree of Life at 15 Years Old.

1:58:35Josh Larsen:Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Dissot and Sam Van Halgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Special thanks to everyone at WBEZ Chicago. More information is available at WBEZ.org. For Film Spotting, I'm Josh Larson. And I'm Adam Kempinar.

1:58:55Adam Kempenaar:Thanks for listening. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

1:59:38Josh Larsen:Apple Vacations, where your story starts. Hello, beautiful. I'm Amy Eric, founder of Madison Reed, a hair color company I named after my daughter. Forget everything you know about hair color. The mess, the smell, the hassle, the damage. I started Madison Reed because I believed women deserved better. Our mission is simple, to give you the highest quality hair color with salon results and ingredients you could feel good about. female founded and female led we've transformed every part of the hair coloring experience from what goes into your color to where and how you use it our salon quality color is made with ingredients that care for your hair and gives you the freedom to color at home or visit our first of its kind hair color bars and let us do it for you in less time and for a fraction of the cost of a typical salon at Madison Reed you get more than gorgeous results you You get confidence, convenience, and award-winning hair color tried and true and loved by millions of women.

2:00:38Josh Larsen:Come experience it for yourself. The future of hair color is here at Madison Reed. This is Radhi Dablukia from A Really Good Cry. I absolutely love being outdoors, even if it's just stepping outside for a bit of fresh air between meals or taking a mindful walk to clear my head. But the one thing that can really ruin that is when my feet feel cramped in my shoes. So I switched to ultra running. And honestly, it makes such a difference. What I love most is their signature ultra fit comfort balance strength. They have this roomy toe box that lets my toes actually spread and move naturally. So I really appreciate that.

2:01:10Josh Larsen:And I feel more grounded and balanced with every single step. It's like my feet can finally do their job using all those little muscles that make me feel stronger the more I move. Whether you are a marathon runner, beginner or advanced or just getting outside to train, ultras have become my go to for running and moving mindfully. They fit so well, they're so comfortable and they just move with you. Shop now at altrarunning.com and use my code CRY10 for 10 % off. That's A-L-T-R-A running.com. Experience Altra and stay out there. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? Business software is expensive.

2:01:45Josh Larsen:And when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing, slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting, all linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at odoo.com. That's odoo.com.